


Skin

by yuletide_archivist



Category: due South
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-10
Updated: 2003-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:10:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Shayheyred</p>
    </blockquote>





	Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Shayheyred

 

 

O'Neil was riding his ass, that was for sure. And Welsh wasn't used to anyone riding his ass -- in the general way of things around here, he was the one who rode people's asses. It was not his raison d'etre, it was merely a necessary part of his job, and he tried not to enjoy it. 

Another thing he tried not to enjoy was the way O'Neil looked when she was riding his ass. No one had talked to him this way since Jeannie. 

That grim set of O'Neil's mouth, that wasn't like Jeannie, though. His ex-wife, when she'd bitched him out like this, used to smile, a smile with a laugh behind it, like they were playing a game and only she knew the rules. Later he figured out that the game wasn't something she took any pleasure in. Smiles, like so much else in this world, rarely meant what you thought they meant. 

She would have done anything to keep him in the dark. Taking that cooking class when, for a few months after the Grimes case, he stopped eating much of anything. Making him drink milk for the damned ulcer. Smiling when she complained, like none of it really mattered. She was beautiful, Jeannie, with hair that smelled like fresh cucumbers and the softest skin he'd ever put his lips to. Whenever he'd reached for her, she had said yes. Just recently, he'd finally stopped   
asking himself how he could've known. 

He hadn't stopped blaming himself for what happened, though. It was no longer something he spent a lot of time thinking about -- in any event, he never had the leisure time for much thinking of a personal nature -- but the blame was there, sitting quietly and mostly undisturbed these days, beginning to gather a layer of dust. 

Someone had told him once that dust was mostly made of human skin, dead cells sloughed off when they were no longer needed and left to settle on things. Skin was insidious stuff, in its way; it looked naked and uncomplicated, but it hid things you never wanted to see, things you wouldn't see until it was too late to stop the bleeding. Either that, or it just covered everything with a layer of grime. 

Jeannie never once admitted to sleeping with Will, not the whole time they were married, not when he asked her for a divorce, not even in court. She lied for four years, she lied behind his back and to his face and, in the end, he guessed she'd lied her way right back out of Will's bed. She wasn't with him anymore, didn't live in Chicago anymore. Welsh kept tabs on her, discreetly. He wanted to make sure he never saw her again. 

It wasn't even a year since the last time. Not the last time he'd seen her -- he couldn't name that day, whenever it was they'd dealt with the final paperwork. This was the real last time. Christmas, and he supposed that was a fairly usual thing. Ironically, they'd had Will and his son over for Christmas dinner. 

"Poor guys, they don't have anyone to cook for them these days." 

Was he an idiot for never wondering why Will and his wife had split up? Probably, but he guessed he'd met bigger idiots. He'd racked his brain for some sign, a memory of a stolen glance, a significant pause or conversational misstep, but he came up empty every time. All he could remember was that the turkey was dry, and Jeannie had gotten a little drunk, and before Will and Eddie were out the door, she was pulling his clothes off, a thin graceless hunger all over her under the chemical scent of booze. 

"I thought they'd never leave." Her cheek pressed flushed heat against his neck, her voice twanged in his ear, a little too loud. 

He brought his arms over her shoulders, then stroked slowly down in the strong caress of her whole body that she loved, nape to knee. She hummed against him. He kissed her soft, sour mouth, and her lips opened hot under his. 

He was probably thinking, at that moment, about how goddamned lucky he was. What a sap. 

Backing their way into the bedroom as they shed clothes, like newlyweds, he kept his hands on her as much as he could. Once he'd started touching her, he never wanted to stop -- when he pulled them away to take off his shoes, his hands ached for her skin. She turned away to take off her bra, and he watched the butterfly motion of her arms unhooking the clasp. Light from the halogen streetlamp flooded in through the window and made her glow, showing the fine blond hairs radiant all over her, shining motes swirling in the air. 

Jeannie climbed on top of him without any dignity whatsoever, a sloppy crawl marked by too-wet kisses on his legs, belly, and chest. She fastened her mouth to his and slid down to engulf him, and as always he gasped in wonder at that first sensation. Then she moved, too fast for him, somehow erratically, pleasing herself, squeezing her own nipples until he reached up to do it himself. She pushed his hands down, so he stroked her hips and then reached between her legs. 

Her motion changed then, her body arching up like a bird lifting away from the lake, resuming her migration. She ground against his fingers, so soft there, pressing against him so hard, and he felt rather than heard her breathing and knew it wouldn't be long. 

In the moments while she was coming, a small ache opened up in his chest, drowned almost immediately by his own orgasm. She collapsed damply on top of him and he touched her shuddering back, her shoulders, helpless to stop. 

And a few days after that he picked up the hall extension a few seconds after she picked up in the bedroom, and he knew it all. 

"Lieutenant, are we clear?" O'Neil was looking down at him. She was smiling now. 

He couldn't do it again. He didn't have it in him. Love was for the young. 

"Oh, yes ma'am. We're clear."   
 

* * *

  


Many thanks to Basingstoke, Kestrelsan, and Pares for looking this over. 

 


End file.
